Sentinel
Sentinels are a variety of mutant-hunting robots, appearing in the Marvel Comics universe. A Sentinel appears in X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes and Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. Background The Sentinels were invented by Dr. Bolivar Trask after he found that his own son had developed mutant powers. After being unable to suppress his son's growing mutant powers, Trask studied the nature of powerful mutations and came to the conclusion that mutants would eventually supplant normal humans as Earth's dominant race if no action was taken to control them. Soon after, Trask and a team of scientists developed the first Sentinel prototypes in a secret laboratory, intending to use them to capture and destroy America's mutants in an ambush. However, Trask realised that not all mutants were hostile to humans, and helped the X-Men to destroy his Sentinel manufacturing facility. Since then, the majority of Sentinel designs and manufacturing is now under United States Government control, being used to aid the US military on some occasions in operations against mutants, and are constantly refined and improved in order to maintain their high degree of lethality. However, numerous cases exist where Sentinel designs and manufacturing secrets have fallen under the control of various villain organisations. Though Sentinels are commonly seen as autonomous robots, some manned models have been developed, with the Sentinel's chest area housing a cockpit for the pilot. In addition, the anti-mutant protocols developed for autonomous Sentinels require them to protect humans from mutants, though their combat programming gives Sentinels a high degree of leeway as to how they do this. Thus, massive collateral damage is often the norm when Sentinels are deployed to capture or kill mutants. In-Game Story In Sentinel's MvC3 ending, the unit that defeated Galactus begins to disseminate battle data and an unknown energy source, gathered from from Galactus after his defeat, amongst other Sentinels. This improves all Sentinels' combat performance by 250% A group of Sentinels are then seen alerting the Master Mold about their victories over various groups, mentioning casualty reports listing slain targets under categories like Mavericks, Mutants, Street Fighters, Darkstalkers, and even Entities and Divine Beings. They then mention they are preparing to destroy a portion of the human race, possibly to exterminate any mutant or supernatural potential from resurfacing in humanity again. Powers and Abilities Though Sentinels are constantly being updated with new weapons and abilities, all models maintain the following abillities: *'Darts:' Sentinels carry ten steel javelin-like darts on the trunk that can be thrown to pierce an opponent. *'Electric Isolation:' Sentinels are especially protected against electric attacks. *'Encephalo-Scanner:' Sentinels are equipped with a scanner to read the brainwaves of a target and determine if it was telling the truth. This device is not infallible. *'Energy Blast:' Sentinels have various types of energy projectiles, including but not limited to plasma, electrons, stunners and heat, that could be shot from their chest or hands. They are also armed with a disintegrator that only affects inorganic matter. *'Flight:' Rocket jets built into their feet and hands allow for high-speed flight. *'Learning Program:' A special learning program allows Sentinels a certain advantage when fighting an enemy, but only after at least some seconds of analysis. This data can be stored for future uses against the same enemy, so that any Sentinel from any model can access the information. Any needed modification takes at least one week. In the 21st century, data on all known mutants, living or dead, is stored for quick reference. *'Mutant Detection:' Sentinels constantly scan all living beings in their immediate area and are able to determine if they are humans or mutants. The "immediate area" can cover up to ten miles. *'Robot:' Due to their nature, Sentinels are protected by the sheer strength of their hull. They cannot be affected by emotional or mental attacks, nor by illusions. However, they are susceptible to attacks affecting machinery. *'Super Strength:' Sentinels are known''' to lift at least seventy tons. *'''Self-Repair: '''Sentinels are able to repair themselves with a built-in repair kit, provided there are sufficient materials nearby to effect repairs. In addition, some Sentinels are manufactured for a leader-type role, being much more intelligent than other Sentinels and able to learn, adapt to, and counteract the tactics and powers used by mutants to a highly developed, near instantaneous degree. Gameplay Support Attacks *α (Projectile): Sentinel Force - Summons three mini-Sentinels that fly toward the opponent and ram them, the mini-Sentinels exploding in the process. *β (Projectile): Air Raid - Summons three mini-Sentinels that fly across the stage and carpet bomb the area. Opponents also take damage if they are struck by the flying Sentinels. *γ (Ground): Rocket Punch - Launches it's famous rocket-propelled hydraulic fist toward the opponent in a downward 45-degree angle. Hyper Combos *'Plasma Storm (Level 1) - '''Generates a powerful sphere of electricity, shocking anything that comes near it. In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the Plasma Storm now envelops a much larger area than earlier versions. *'Hard Drive (Level 1) - 'Creates a pyramid-shaped forcefield around its body and rams through the opponent, assisted by several mini-Sentinels. *'Hyper Sentinel Force (Level 1) - '''Aims for the opponent and sends three waves of three mini-Sentinels to attack the opponent. In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the three mini-Sentinels are now grouped more tightly together. Tactics True to it's mutant-hunting design, the Sentinel is a lumbering engine of destruction. It is slow, but has the highest health (cited here) and damage-per-hit rating of any MvC3 character. With it's array of highly damaging projectiles and Level 1 Hyper Combos that can be used repeatedly and in quick succession, the Sentinel excels when using a keep-away strategy. However, the Sentinel also performs well at maintaining pressure against rushdown characters with constant air combos, even if they manage to close the distance. It's launcher attack is very damaging and has a long horizontal reach; once the Sentinel is in the air, it's high damage-per-hit rating is put to good use, with a mere three or four normal hits taking large amounts of an opponent's health, all in addition to an aerial Rocket Punch coupled with a well-timed Hard Drive Hyper Combo that can be used for a final blow. Once an opponent is knocked down, the downward hitting Rocket Punch can be used to "bounce" the grounded opponent. This leaves them vulnerable to yet more air combos, starting the Sentinel's cycle of destruction all over again. Theme Song thumb|left|300px Sentinel's theme is a remix of the '''Genosha '''stage theme from '''X-Men: Children of the Atom, which coincidentally happens to be Sentinel's own stage in that game. Trivia * Gameinformer voted Sentinel one of the top ten fighting game characters due to how overpowered he is. *He was confirmed alongside Hsien-Ko on January 27th, 2011. * The Sentinel in MvC3 resembles the Mark V model in the X-Men comics. However, Sentinel's character model is much smaller in-game than in the comics due to the fact that if he was in original size he would be too big to play as. In Marvel continuity, Sentinel's height is approximately 20 ft (6 meters), while in MvC3 the Sentinel appears to be at least 11 ft tall (almost 3.5 meters). * Sentinel, much like Magneto, also received an alternate costume created by the fans, being dubbed "Da Mango Sentinel" by Yipes from the Mahvel Baybee Video. * In his reveal trailer, Sentinel was paired up with Storm and Magneto, which could be referencing one of the most popular team-ups of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 due to how overpowered the trio was. *In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Sentinel is voiced by Jim Ward, who voiced the Sentinels in Wolverine and The X-Men. *Due to not having their own conscience, Sentinels can be classified as Neutral characters, since they loyally serve those who built them, regardless of their masters' alignment. *Sentinel is one of four unlockable characters in the game, along with Hsien-Ko, Akuma and Taskmaster. To unlock Sentinel, players must accumulate 4,000 Player Points. *Sentinel, along with Captain America, Spider-Man, Shuma-Gorath, and Dr. Doom, are the only Marvel characters in MvC3 to retain their respective themes in all the games they have been playable in. *Sentinel used to have the highest stamina/health of all the characters in MvC3 with 1,300,000. On March 22, he was nerfed, dropping his total health to 905,000. *After defeating X-23, Sentinel detects that she has the same DNA as Wolverine (which would imply that, surprisingly, Sentinel can't comprehend the existence of clones). Although it can tell the difference between mutants and mutates (e.g. artificially mutated humans) as it determined that Albert Wesker was a mutated human after defeating him. *In Sentinel's ending, one of the Sentinels is seen dragging a grievously injured Dan to an unknown location inside a Sentinel base. *Sentinel seems to have mistaken Tron Bonne's Servbots as Sentinels who have been re-programmed and re-designed for her needs; it then seizes all Servbots and arrests Tron as Sentinel's post-match victory quote says "Target apprehended. Fraudulent Sentinel production halted." Artwork Mvc2-sentinel.jpg|Marvel vs. Capcom 2 : New Age of Heroes med___SENTINEL0046-00000_bmp_jpgcopy_1280x720.jpg|Sentinel Alternate Costume 1 Mangosentinel.jpg|Sentinel Alternate Costume 2 (The Mango Sentinel!) Category:MvC2 Characters Category:X-Men Characters Category:Marvel Characters Category:Neutral Alignment Category:Summonable Characters Category:MvC3 Characters Category:artwork Category:Characters